To The Home I Left Behind:
I used to think about leaving you. You were like a toxic relationship or a bad boyfriend; no matter how many times you broke my heart or hurt me I kept coming back to you. It felt impossible to leave you, especially during the happy moments, and I sometimes felt as if I was never going to get away.
Saying goodbye to you was the strangest thing I've ever experienced and I don't think it's something many people will understand until they go through it on their own. Weeks before our goodbye, the town almost seemed to fade away. The lights lost their shine. The buildings I had always known suddenly seemed foreign. The familiar noises no longer satisfied me. The people began losing their importance.
I drove the streets that had raised me and retraced every step that I had memorized by heart. Those were my streets and this was my home, yet there I was, willingly giving up everything I had ever known in pursuit of everything I wasn't even sure existed. Nothing seemed real.
I come back and visit now, although I try not to come back very often. You don't feel the same and I honestly don't think you ever will. Although I can smile when I think of all the things that made me and the place that shaped me, I don't smile when I think of who or what I left behind. I know that I left for a reason, and no matter who is wishing and waiting for me to come back, I have realized that you do not always belong in the place in which you are born.
I come home to find the same people in the same place doing the same thing. Their stories are the same and so are their lives; their appearance is the greatest thing that has been altered since the last goodbye. The buildings still stand and the roads still lead to the same places. I don't drive them anymore, though. And I don't really care where they go; I'm no longer interested in what lies at the end.
The parks are still filled with the same parked cars. The same addicts are still overdosing. The closed-minded are still preaching their "gospel." The jails are still inhabited with its usual customers. The people are still there, stuck, doing what they were being who they were when I left them. Their happiness is none of my concern and their life path is not mine to plan; I have simply decided that I no longer want a part of it.
Our happiness is not the same. Our minds are in different places. And our souls are made of different things. Home is lovable and so are the people; I simply chose to find my love somewhere else.
I will come home to visit and I will drive on the same roads that lead to the same places. I will see the same people doing the same things. And I will have the same conversations.
Nothing will feel the same, though and I doubt that it ever will. Because yes, you are my hometown. But you are not my home.
They say that home is where your heart is. And sadly, I cannot find it here.
You will always be my hometown and you will always claim responsibility for shaping me and making me; I will never forget the people I love or the place I sometimes miss. But you will not claim responsibility for my heart or my happiness because when I left you behind I found it.
No matter how little I visit, how easily you slip my mind, or how quickly I brush you to the side, I will visit and I will come back. I may not be able to find my heart here, and much of my happiness will be lost, but I will always be thankful for the memories. And the laughter. The people you brought me and the lessons you taught me.
Because without you I never would have known what I was going without.
